I'm no professional chef. I don't even own a vegetable peeler. But I work 50 hours a week and feed myself on six dollars a day, and I eat damn good food. So I thought you might like to see how I do it.

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Category Archives: one-pot meals

Here’s a super easy weeknight meal, inspired by this dish from Smitten Kitchen!

I’ve spent the past year dabbling in the gluten free world, which lately has sort of gone by the wayside because I decided to run a half marathon in May (yes, really!), and now that I’m running 4+ times a week, my body doesn’t seem to care whether I eat bread, pasta, or even pizza. It’s pretty awesome, and honestly, worth all the miles I’m putting on my shoes. I made a breakfast sandwich the other day…on an English muffin! After 13 months of corn tortillas and chickpea-flour pancakes, that was pretty revolutionary. Not to say I don’t still love brown rice (and let’s face it, I’d eat a corn tortilla quesadilla for lunch every single day if I weren’t such a stickler for variety), so a ton of meals I cook still happen to be gluten-free, but I can be a little less strict about it these days and still feel healthy and clear-headed.

Which is all meant to say, we still have a lot of corn and brown rice pasta in our pantry. Which is why this meal happened.

I started by quartering some mushrooms and sauteeing them in my skillet. We made slow cooker collard greens for a dinner party last weekend that used an entire pound of bacon — that fat of which I saved and have been cooking pretty much everything in this week, including these mushrooms.

I chopped up some frozen chicken tenders for protein, but wanted a little extra texture to go in there so after defrosting them, I coated them in a simple batter of flour and dried herbs. Then I fried them up next in the skillet, and set both them and the mushrooms aside on a plate.

Meanwhile, I had been steaming an entire bunch of broccoli in my fancy bamboo steamer (using the pot of pasta-water-to-be as the steaming liquid), which I now removed from the heat (and added the corn pasta to the water to begin cooking it. Corn pasta — at least this brand — takes about twice as long as regular pasta to cook, so get started on it before you think you’ll need to.

While all that sauteeing had been going on, I’d chopped up a couple shallots and a few cloves of garlic, which I sauteed in the empty-again skillet for a few minutes before adding the steamed broccoli, some red pepper flakes and salt, and a bit of half and half. This made a nice mushy mess, but looks aren’t important here, because it’s all about to go into the Cuisinart anyway.

Here’s where the true improvising begins. After a few pulses in the Cuisinart, it looked like super thick cream of broccoli soup, but then I started adding odds and ends from the fridge to make it creamier — some random soft cheese wedges that were left over from said dinner party, a little more cream, spices and salt to taste, and then to thin it out and turn it into more of a sauce, I took a dips into the pasta water with a measuring cup (though I can’t tell you at all how much!). Regular water probably would have worked fine here, but pasta cooking water gets nice and starchy, especially from corn pasta, so this helped to give the sauce some body.

Once I was satisfied with the taste and consistency, I drained the pasta, mixed in the sauce, and then topped it with the mushrooms and chicken.

Easy and healthy (minus the bacon fat) one-dish meal!

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February has been all about the stews and soups. I’ve gotten into a nice weekly routine of prepping some sort of crock pot meal on a Monday or Tuesday night, while I cook that night’s dinner, sticking it in the fridge, and then getting it started the next morning when I get up for work.

This borscht is actually a stovetop recipe, but simmered nicely in the background in the same way while I prepped about 4 different meals’ worth of food. It’s from the same blog where I discovered last week’s tea eggs, and now that I’m glancing back at the recipe I’m astonished that I didn’t notice that it shared a post with her beef stroganoff, since that’s what Jesse got out of bed talking about on Sunday morning, and dutiful for his craving, made for dinner on Sunday night out of the Betty Crocker cookbook.

In any case, I like Mimi’s instruction to chop up all the vegetables ahead of time. This is usually how I roll anyway, as it’s so satisfying to have the tedious work done and to be able to just dump, sweep, and add during the fun part of cooking time while cleaning up the detritus trail as I go.

This is:

1 onion

1 shallot

2 carrots

1 rib celery

1 rutabega

1/2 small cabbage

2 cloves garlic

All chopped up. You start with your big soup pot, melt some butter in the bottom, and cook and onion and shallot first. After a few minutes, add all the chopped veggies, plus a bay leaf, garlic, and 1 teaspoon crushed allspice.

Once the veggies have cooked down a bit, add 1.5 cups of stock (I used beef stock), and simmer until all vegetables are soft. I ate mine with a little bit of Greek yogurt as a garnish!

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First crock pot meal of the fall! I spotted this recipe in a crock pot roundup awhile back and decided this week was the perfect time to give it a try. Winningly simple, as a crock pot recipe needs to be to make it into my book, this was as easy as chopping up some veggies, throwing boneless skinless chicken thighs into the ceramic bowl, adding some spices, and leaving it to do its work.

First, some baby red potatoes.

These got thrown in the post with some sliced carrots and a tub of homemade chicken broth.

And almost two pounds of boneless skinless chicken.

What else goes in here? Just half a cup of white wine, 4 cloves of pressed garlic, and a teaspoon of salt.

Our slow cooker is reeeeeally slow, so this actually cooked on our kitchen counter for a good seven hours on Wednesday while we were both at work, and was done just in time for me to come home to find Jesse putting the finishing touches on his Halloween costume (he was a shadow) and to pull off these final steps:

* Adding 1 can of artichoke hearts to the stew and giving it a stir

* Removing most of the chicken and veggies from the broth and thickening this broth up with a mixture of these ingredients, whisked together separately:

1 egg and 2 egg yolks

1/2 cup lemon juice

dill

fresh ground pepper

* Letting this sauce thicken up for a few minutes in the bowl of the crock pot, and then pouring it over the chicken and veggies as a rich lemony dressing.

I opted out of the Halloween festivities for a much-needed night at home in my pajamas, passing out candy to trick-or-treaters for the first time in my new house (and the first time in 5 years that I haven’t lived in a hidden basement apartment!), and catching up on a host of near-finished knitting projects that have been clamoring for attention.

This Week’s Groceries

Fred Meyer 10/31

Carrots: $0.97

Parsley: $0.99

Chicken thighs: $6.63

Ground pork: $1.97

Cottage cheese: $2.49

Yogurt: $2.55

Artichoke hearts: $2.75

Ricotta cheese: $2.69

Yellow onions: $1.29

Dave’s Killer Bread: $4.99 — As someone who baked her own bread for 3+ years, trust me, this does feel ridiculous.

Can I tell you how much I love the Portland Fruit Company? Sooooo much. It has become a permanent part of my Tuesday afternoons, swinging by after whatever other errands or appointments I’ve lined up on my “day off.” It’s not even that it’s got sucha gigantic selection, or that all the produce is super organic (but I think it’s mostly all local?), but they have just the right amount of everything, enough new stuff each week to give me a suggestive nod at a new dish, and are crazy, crazy cheap. Like I walk away with a bag full of fruits and veggies that would cost me probably $28 at New Seasons, for only $16.93. And there’s always something yummy near the register like fresh peaches or plums that I can grab one or two of, for the bike ride home, for like $0.38.

This week, I was wooed by the mushrooms. I usually go for crimini, because they’re the cheapest, but this time I was like, you know, it’s the beginning of the month, I have a little wiggle room now that Jesse’s grocery budget is combined with mine, and seriously, the oysters are not that expensive.

So that’s how this meal started. Wednesday night, I had the house to myself while Jesse went out on a bike ride with his friend. It was also a chicken-roasting night, prepping some meat and stock to have on hand for the rest of the night, so I decided to whip up some stuffing for roasted peppers while that sat in the oven.

First: a few stalks of celery, some jalapeno, and half a yellow onion.

Then, I added in the cubed yam, and let that sautee and soften up, adding a bit of chicken stock when the pan got too dry, and added about half a pound of chopped oyster and shitake mushrooms.

Meanwhile, I had started 1 cup of red rice cooking, with just a bit of salt and nothing else. Red rice takes a little longer than white rice — but not quite as long as brown rice — to cook, so it was done right as this skillet was done cooking.

In it goes…

And finally, some shredded cheddar cheese to get it all sticking together. And tasting delicious. I bought an amazing cheese grater from Ikea that lets you grate the cheese directly into a seal-able Tupperware, so I’ve started doing this to a 1-lb brick of Tillamook every few weeks and just keeping it in our cheese drawer. This is genius. Way to go, Ikea.

I had bought two beautiful orange bell peppers, just for this occasion.

These got stuffed, and placed directly into the roasting pan with my chicken for its last 20 minutes in the oven at 400 degrees.

Oh, and of course, there are TONS of leftovers of the stuffing, so I’ve been eating that for lunches this week with a few slices of the chicken breast and red cabbage slaw. Also, I just have to say, I still have not gotten over the novelty of having a kitchen sink. Guys, it is SO MUCH EASIER to clean up while you cook and always have an uncluttered, everything-in-its-place kitchen with sparkling countertops when you can do dishes as you go and wipe everything down with a sponge!! Seriously, I hope this never gets old.

This Week’s (and last week’s) Groceries

Grocery Outlet 9/22

Spring mix: $4.99

Coffee beans: $6.49

Granola: $0.99

Cucumber: $0.79

Cherry tomatoes: $0.99

TOTAL: $14.25

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $0.37— Yesssss!

Portland Fruit Company 10/2

Shitake mushrooms: $3.01

Cucumbers: $0.80

Kale: $1.29

Carrots: $1.11

Sweet onion: $0.61

Red onion: $0.47

Ginger: $0.28

Sweet potatoes: $0.68

Cantaloupe: $1.95

Celery: $0.99

Asian pear: $0.72

Bartlett pear: $0.23

Roma tomatoes: $0.83

Random produce (not specified on receipt): $3.96

TOTAL: $16.93

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $283.07

New Seasons 10/2

Sea salt: $2.34

Himalayan salt: $2.99

Dozen eggs: $2.99

Dave’s Killer Seed Bread: $4.99 — I think this is the first time I’ve bought a loaf of bread in 5 years! I’ve been off the breadbaking wagon lately, but do crave some dank toast in the morning sometimes with a fried egg or some cottage cheese and roma tomatoes. This loaf stays in the freezer for those occasions.

Cottage cheese: $4.49

Milk: $3.39

Whole roasting chicken: $10.71

Olives: $3.80

TOTAL: $35.28

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: $247.79 — So far this seems like $300 a month for the two of us will be a piece of cake. Granted, Jesse hasn’t been around as much for dinners this week and definitely doesn’t make all his breakfasts and lunches like I do, so we’ll see if his contributing an equal share is really realistic for the time being…

All right, we’re getting down to the wire here. I’m clearly already over-budget for the month, and so trying to keep the shopping as skimpy as possible for these last few days of August. Spending last weekend in the woods certainly helped — after a super cheap trip to Grocery Outlet ($37, two people, five meals!), we spent a lazy Saturday along the Salmon River eating pepper-egg-provolone-pesto wraps, fresh plums and carrots, TastyBites Indian meals, spicy chicken sausages, and jalapeno-watermelon cocktails. Not too shabby.

So cooking this week, I’m really trying to just use what I’ve already got on hand. Which never really takes too much effort, given what an apocalyptic-ready stockpile I have in my pantry, but it’s the fresh veggies that always provide a challenge.

Fortunately for me, I had some serious peppers on hand — still a ton of jalapenos from my last Fubonn run.

And also some leftover bell peppers from camping (one of the few fresh vegetables I’ll pack, even when backpacking. So sturdy, hearty, and refreshing, with very little waste to pack out!).

So these got sauteed with a small yellow onion while I browned some chicken I had in the freezer…

And once those were all softened, I added some homemade chicken stock to make things a little richer.

In contemplating what grain would go along with this the best, I was itching for something in between rice and pasta. Which, scanning my pantry shelves, inevitably led me to…

Israeli couscous. I really think this is just plain old pasta in a novel shape, but it does the trick. And, while you can totally cook it separately, in a dish like this, I figure why not just throw it directly into the skillet and turn it into a one-pot meal??

So once some liquid had melted off of my chicken stock brick, I added 1 cup of Israeli couscous, and enough V8 juice to submerge all the ingredients, to turn this into a nice tomato sauce.

I covered this all to let the couscous absorb most of the broth, after adding some salt, pepper, and green herbs (in the family of Italian seasoning).

20 minutes later, this dish was ready for the final ingredient — the remainder of my bag of fresh spinach.

I did also make a pit-stop at Fred Meyer the other night, after a 4.5-hour Ikea marathon (I think Jesse and I may have set a historic precedent for being the first couple to emerge form 4+ hours at Ikea together, not fighting or crying), to get some crucial ingredients to get me through the rest of my week: some fresh salad veggies and a roasted chicken.

Between this for lunches and dinners, a visit from my dad taking us out to the Sunshine Tavern for dinner last night, and some yogurt, cottage cheese, and fruit that I still had in my fridge for breakfasts, I can make it to Saturday, no problem. And then the month resets and I can get back on track with my budget! Jesse officially moves in in October: last month of single livin’!

This Week’s Groceries

Fred Meyer 8/28

Mixed greens: $2.28

Radish bunch: $0.50

Cucumber: $0.50

Red onion: $0.65

Roasted chicken: $6.99 — Truth be told, this is one of my favorite “take-out” meals. Some shredded roasted chicken atop mixed greens and crunchy vegetables, some blue cheese crumbles or whatever other cheese I have in my drawer, flax or sunflower seeds, and a yummy dressing. It’s perfect post-workout, or when I’m craving a satisfying, fresh-tasting meal and want to skip right over the gluten altogether. I prefer when I can dip into my stash of home-roasted chicken that I keep in my freezer, but in a pinch, a whole roasted and seasoned chicken from Freddy’s for seven bucks is a pretty sweet deal.

TOTAL: $10.92

REMAINING FOR THE MONTH: -$57.21 — Yikes! This leaves me with only about $100 to spend in September…

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About Me

I believe in using local, seasonal vegetables. I believe in happy, organic, well-fed meat. I believe in buying the raw materials, rather than prepared foods. However, I do not underestimate the importance of a good snack cupboard, both sweet and salty. I shop on sale. I redeem coupons. I bring a bag lunch, and I always use my leftovers.
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